Weekend America Voices
Desiree Cooper
Recent Stories
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Signs of Spring
This weekend, the signs of spring are everywhere. We celebrate the arrival of the season with three stories of how folks say farewell to winter and embrace the Northern Hemisphere's return to the sun.
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An Alternative Spring Break
There is a whole new generation of college students who spend their break doing volunteer work. Weekend America co-host Desiree Cooper talks to Janel Knight, a senior at American University who is in Louisiana building homes for families displaced by hurricane Katrina.
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Putting 'Danny Boy' to Rest
Alfred O'Neil, Jr. sang "Danny Boy" at his father's funeral. He sang it so well he was asked to sing it again, and again, and again. Today he retires "Danny Boy" with an open-mic tribute.
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A War Over an Hour
The transition to Daylight Saving Time hasn't always been an easy one. From riots in Athens, Ohio, over shortened bar hours to time-zone separation anxiety in the Twin Cities, Dr. David Prerau, shares stories of Daylight Saving Time dilemmas.
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Clash of the Holidays
John O'Grady has been a part of the annual St. Patrick's Day parade in Columbus, Ohio, since he was a teenager. But this year, the holiday falls on the same week as the Easter Holy Week. So this year, O'Grady, a devout Catholic, has decided to sit it out.
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Fifty-Two Alternatives to Suicide
When he woke up in a psych ward after a drunken suicide attempt, Owen Lowery made a list of 52 things he wanted to do, and then spent the next year meeting them. He fought a shark, went hang gliding, and made someone's dream come true. Making a movie was at the top of the list, so he filmed himself going through his self-imposed check-list. We talk to Lowery about his film, "An Alternative to Slitting Your Wrists."
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Don't Ask the GPS
Last week in Secaucus, N.J., a GPS system led truck drivers directly into a road block on a residential street, instead of the industrial area they were looking for. But map mistakes are nothing new. It's just the technology that changes. We talk to Mark Monmonier of Syracuse University about the world's biggest cartographic blunders and what happens when they go uncorrected.
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Letters: Losing a Team and a Planet
This week we hear from listeners who urge us to forget about the Seattle SuperSonics, chaperone a middle-school dance and get out Star Wars planets down.
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A Russian Election Party
In Russia, Putin's hand-picked successor Dmitri Medvedev is nearly guaranteed to win to win the country's presidency. Russian ex-pats Ilya Merenzon and Katia Gaika are watching from afar and plan to cast their ballots. Weekend America talks to these two Russian citizens living in New York, for their unique perspective on democracy.
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How Many Donuts Does it Take to Feed a Campaign?
On the front page of Friday's New York Times, an article called "Donors Worried by Clinton Campaign Spending" detailed the millions that Senator Hillary Clinton is spending on her presidential run. Most of the money was spent on what you'd expect: thousands on hotel rooms, campaign consultants, media buys and polling. But some of the expenditures were pretty odd.
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Moldy Moose and Other Tales from Wrangell, Alaska
The station in Wrangell, Alaska, just added Weekend America to its roster, so we decided to drop in on them and see what's happening in the remote fishing village. We talk to Beth Comstock, who works for the local paper, The Wrangell Sentinel.
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An Author Weighs in on Cuba
Cuban-American author and Professor Cristina Garcia shares her feelings about what it means to be Cuban and how Fidel Castro's resignation may affect her community.
